There’s a muted level of excitement when you come to expect something great, which goes a long way in explaining why Igor Shesterkin was not a headline alongside Chris Kreider on Thursday night.
Shesterkin has been metronomic in the regular season and he has been metronomic in the playoffs since his breakout Vezina Trophy-winning 2021-22 season. Nothing new.
His .923 save percentage through 10 games of this playoff run is, in fact, a hair below his career-long mark of .927 — not that anyone in their right mind would say the Russian has been lagging.
“You saw Igor make some monster saves as we were trying to score, as we were trying to push that game,” Peter Laviolette said after the Rangers eliminated the Hurricanes on Thursday night. “And oftentimes that happens. You loosen up or you leave yourself a little bit on the back end and you need your goaltender to make saves. I thought he made some incredible saves throughout the game, but especially in the third period.”
Shesterkin was the Rangers’ trump card through six games in the second round, over which Frederik Andersen was worn down and never quite on his game.
The Canes’ netminders combined for an .878 save percentage in the series. Shesterkin has turned in a worse save percentage just four times in 38 career playoff games.
No matter if the Rangers face Boston or Florida in the conference finals, Shesterkin will be their greatest asset in the series.
Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky has had spectacular playoff runs, last season included. The tandem of Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark in Boston is excellent, and Swayman’s current playoff run is worth lauding.
But there is no lingering worry of inconsistency with Shesterkin, and there is no potential goalie controversy with the Rangers if things hit a snag.
Knowing they could trust him in nets gave the Rangers impetus to push up the ice on Thursday when they were chasing the game, down 3-1 and trying to avoid playing Game 7 against Carolina.
They were liable to give up some breakaways as a result, and that’s what they did. Shesterkin got the knob of his stick on Jake Guentzel’s attempt. He stopped a sure-thing goal from Jordan Staal off a rebound at the doorstep. He made another highlight-reel save with 2:45 to go on Andrei Svechnikov, the last shot on goal the Hurricanes would get before Barclay Goodrow’s empty-netter sealed a 5-3 win.
“He was huge,” Goodrow said. “He made a phenomenal save on Svechnikov. Such a hard save to make. He does it time and time again when we need him most and he’s there for us.”
The Rangers’ run of greats in net is not to be underestimated. There are just three seasons — 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2019-20 — since 1990 that the majority of games have not been started by either Shesterkin, Henrik Lundqvist or Mike Richter.
There is not a team in the league that wouldn’t kill for a 34-year run like that.
“We got all the confidence in the world in him,” Jacob Trouba said. “Not much needs to be said to him or you can talk about him all you want, but he just goes about his business every day. The competitiveness, the focus and the dedication that he has, there’s no one we’d rather have back there as a group.”
Shesterkin is just 28, in his fourth season as the full-time starter, which pales in comparison to the other two. He is on track to be in the same sentence when it is all said and done, but there is a long way between here and there, and next season is the last of his current contract. There is no substitute for tenure in such discussions, but memories come close.
And he is halfway to giving the Rangers the ultimate memory.
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